TikTok’s first European data centre is now operational and located in Dublin, The Verge reports. The social platform is trying to address long-standing concerns about user privacy.

The company behind TikTok, ByteDance, is in the crosshairs of Western politicians who believe that user information could be given to bad actors.

ByteDance is based in Beijing, whose laws oblige companies in the country to share data with the government for national security reasons.

TikTok, however, has always been opposed to tracking its users or handing over any data to governments, saying Beijing’s laws do not apply to data stored overseas. Until Tuesday, users’ data was stored only on servers in the US and Singapore.

With the first European data centre in Europe, the entertainment platform is making another attempt to reduce the tension in politics and its skepticism.

A second such centre, which is in the process of being set up, will be located in Ireland, as well as another to be located in Norway.

TikTok chief executive Theo Bertram, the firm’s vice president of public policy in Europe, said this would create a “specifically hardened security environment around our European users’ data”.

The idea of protecting user data applies not only to users in EU countries, but also to the UK and Switzerland.